Keep It Simple, Stupid

Paul "Mack" McNeil has a reconstructed knee, an unreconstructed life, and a taste for Baci chocolates. The favourite son of a struggling Italian soccer club in the western suburbs, he is desperate to keep playing. But does the Club, his surrogate family, still want him? Once known for his quick wit, of late Mack finds his jokes falling on deaf ears. His mother is in a nursing home which he never visits; his wife, who wants a baby, won't talk to him; her best friend thinks he belongs in the Stone Age, and his new coach thinks he is past it - and yet Mack jokes on, relentlessly. Porn-and-prawn nights at the Club, early morning milk runs, and day and night marital disharmony are the raw material from which he must reshape his life, stepping stones as he struggles towards a new perception of himself and his world.

Reviews

'Goldsworthy's genius as a writer is that he engages us in a whole range of emotions from humour to farce to profound sadness.'